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The dreaded 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM HD question...

post #1 of 11
6/12/06 at 1:28am
Thread Starter 
I know guys, I’m beating a dead horse here. I have searched and searched and can't seem to find a final conclusion anywhere (which may answer my own question).

I just bought my E1505 and upgraded the things I could through dell (the processor, video card, battery, BT and I was another sucker for the Audio Sound Blaster (I needed to spend another 14 dollars so I could use another coupon ). But I already bought 2 GB of ram and was wondering if upgrading my HD from 5400 RPM 100 GB (Dell was free at the time I ordered) or buying a new 7200 RPM drive of the same capacity?

Thanks
Dave
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post #2 of 11
6/12/06 at 1:30am
Thread Starter 
Oh and I will be playing SOME games (nothing serious, BF2, COD2, SIMS, Sim City, Madden, and NHL 06 to name a few of my fav's) but other than that it will be a media/web design/surf board/word doc/DVD computer.

Dave
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post #3 of 11
6/12/06 at 4:52am
Get a 7200rpm you'll be glad you did
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post #4 of 11
6/12/06 at 8:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SHNAKE
Get a 7200rpm you'll be glad you did



i configured my E1505 with a 5400RPM drive (see sig) to possibly save some battery life, and to get a little extra space, but it seems i'd forgotten how slow they really are. it's not unbearable, but i kinda wish i'd gone for the 7200RPM 100GB drive.
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post #5 of 11
6/12/06 at 7:59pm
My experience is the 7200 rpm drive is noticeably faster. I have an E1505 that came from Dell with a 5400 rpm drive. I then replaced it with the Hitachi 7k100 (7200 rpm). I managed to get a couple of benchmarks with HD Tach. These results are with HD Tach. They are not the best comparison as the 5400 was through an eSATA interface, but I had done another test showing the eSATA to SATA difference to be marginal.

Hitachi 100GB 7200 rpm (7k100)
  • Average Read: 42.9 MB/s
  • Burst Speed: 114.7 MB/s
  • Peak Sequential Read: ~ 56 MB/s
Fujitsu 100 GB 5400 rpm
  • Average Read: 31.9 MB/s
  • Burst Speed: 129.9 MB/s
  • Peak Sequential Read: 41 MB/s
  • CPU Utilization: 2%

I pulled the results from a previous thread.
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post #6 of 11
6/12/06 at 9:01pm
id say if you had the extra cash go ahead and get the faster drive. but if not a free 100gb 5400rpm drive isnt all that bad!
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post #7 of 11
6/14/06 at 11:35am
lol have been using 5400rpm, not bad at all. 7200rpm would be nice but I worry about the battery life though...
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post #8 of 11
6/14/06 at 11:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by spike7
lol have been using 5400rpm, not bad at all. 7200rpm would be nice but I worry about the battery life though...

you're not losing much by upgrading to a 7200rpm drive. From my past experience, the drive does tend to get slightly warmer than a 5400rpm drive though.
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post #9 of 11
6/14/06 at 1:26pm
I'd go with a 7200RPM drive over a 5400RPM drive any day of the week, but since the deal comes with a free 100GB upgrade, i don't think there's any incentive to switch since it's probably more than buying a 100GB 7200RPM drive separately.

LEMAR
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post #10 of 11
6/14/06 at 7:27pm
battery life with a 7200 is really about the same.

u wont notice a difference.
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post #11 of 11
6/16/06 at 3:33pm
The 7200 RPM drives have a more aerodynamic head than the 5400 RPM drive (generally speaking) and therefore use the same amount of power once spun up... They DO however use moderately more power while spinning up... This isn't important for battery life (usually) but it can mean the difference between needing an external power source and being powered only through USB in certain 2.5" enclosures...

7200 RPM notebook drives are impressively faster than 5400 RPM drives IMO. I bought my laptop when I did because it was the first time you could get a pentium-m, a 7200RPM drive, and a dx9.0 video card in one machine... (i8600 1.7G with 9600Pro-Turbo and 60GB drive... :thumbsup: )
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